Orlando's new Cure Bowl joins college football postseason lineup

While new game has no TV agreement, bowl organizers see a bright future for game pitting American Athletic Conference and Sun Belt teams

(Joe Burbank, Orlando Sentinel )

April 16, 2014|By Matt Murschel, Orlando Sentinel

Orlando's newest bowl game has a few logistics to work out, but city and game officials were excited to formally welcome a third postseason college football game to Citrus Bowl.

The city of Orlando and Orlando Sports Foundation formally announced the launch of the Cure Bowl Wednesday.

The game, which will debut sometime in December of 2015, will be the third postseason bowl game hosted by the Citrus Bowl. The stadium currently hosts the Russell Athletic and Capital One bowls. The new game will feature teams from the American Athletic and Sun Belt conferences.

The game is slated to be the 39th bowl game in 2015, excluding the national championship game.

"It's been an exciting week here in Orlando," Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said during a news conference in front of the Citrus Bowl. The stadium is currently undergoing a $200 million renovation that won't be completed until November.

It's been a busy week for city and county leaders, who also announced Tuesday an agreement to host the American Athletic Conference's men's basketball tournament at the Amway Center in 2016 and 2017.

"We've talked about building these venues and being able to host any event that could possible come to a city of our type and here we are now announcing a third bowl game. There's no city in America that hosts three college bowl games," Dyer said.

Alan Gooch, the former UCF football coach, helped lead the volunteer group that has been working to bring another bowl game to Orlando since 2009.

"I'm just happy and thrilled for everybody that came together to do this game," said Gooch, executive director of the Orlando Sports Foundation

The new game aims to generate exposure for breast cancer screening and prevention, with a percentage of proceeds going to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

"Together we're going to harness the passion and the love for college football and taking that enthusiasm and bringing with that the opportunity for awareness of breast cancer," said Lisa Risi, chief operating officer of the BCRF.

While bowl games typically donate to charities, Gooch hopes the Cure Bowl will set records year-in and year-out for its generosity.

"We have an opportunity to break a record by giving to a foundation if we gave over $90,000 to our charity partner, which is what bowls typically do," Gooch said. "We certainly want to break that record every year."

There are still details to hammer out, including a possible television deal, but according to Gooch, there is interest from all of the major television networks. "Obviously, we want to make the best deal possible for our bowl and Breast Cancer Research Foundation," he added.

"We're not just looking for someone to put the game on television, we're looking for a partner to help us raise money for cancer research and do some things outside of the game itself."

While some football fans lament the growing number of bowl games, non-power conferences have struggled to line up postseason agreements following a wave of conference realignment. With more teams moving into the power conferences, the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and Pac-12 gobbled up traditional bowl positions, leaving little room for the American Athletic Conference, Conference USA, Mid-American Conference, Mountain West and Sun Belt.

"It's really important because we were worried that we didn't have enough tie-ins," Aresco said. "We're going to have a 12-team league and we could have as many as six, seven, eight, even nine bowl-eligible teams. We thing we're going to have teams that will be able to go 7-5 or 6-6 and qualify for bowls. So it's really important to have another game."

The Orlando Sports Foundation officials said they will work closely with Florida Citrus Sports, the organization that currently hosts the two bowl games and various events at the Citrus Bowl.

The new bowl game should not preclude Orlando from hosting a College Football Playoff game, including the national championship. The earliest Orlando could bid to host a title game in the renovated Citrus Bowl is 2018.